Muay Thai Personal Training - Improved Sparring Through Adaptive Layered Rounds
- jamie03066
- 14 minutes ago
- 2 min read
07.01.2026
Muay Thai Personal Training - Advanced Client
Tonight's lesson's focus was on adapting. This particular client has been consistently training with me since 2014. His lessons are 1.5 hours in length. We decided to train within different ranges with specific weapons together rather than pitting these against one another. Next lesson will take the latter approach. The order of the rounds was structured so that we regularly switched from different ranges rather than following a more linear path of adding on extra weapons. For example, we switched from boxing to clinch and then to kickboxing rather than layering boxing with kicks and so on. This promotes an adaptive theme.
Warm-up
As with all my Muay Thai Personal Training we began with the all-important warm-up. My warm-ups are combination of sport-specific movements, reinforcing good behaviours, muscle activation and dynamic stretching.
Drilling
Our first two rounds dealt with teeps and round kicks respectively. They were drilling in nature, although were also semi-free. We both exchanged kicks and absorbed kicks whilst independently also practised footwork. Being an extension of the warm-up these rounds prioritise kicks as training legs wakes up the nervous system and is very efficient at getting the heart rate up, fully preparing the body for the sparring rounds.
Layered Sparring
As described earlier the layered rounds were structured so that we switched between ranges.
Round 3 - Boxing
Round 4 - Clinching with sweeps
Round 5 - Kickboxing
Round 6 - Clinching with sweeps and knee strikes
Round 7 - Kickboxing with knee strikes
Round 8 - Clinching with sweeps, knee strikes and elbow strikes
Round 9 - Kickboxing with knee strikes and elbow strikes
Round 10 - Freestyle
Round 11 - Freestyle
Round 12 - Freestyle
Nordic Curls - Hamstring Injury Prevention
Hamstrings are placed under a lot pressure in martial arts, especially systems like Muay Thai where the legs experience a lot of explosive force through kicking. With my client now aged 50 and a keen long distance runner, we decided to incorporate injury prevention through an exercise that has a good deal of science-based evidence for preventing hamstring strains.
We follow this routine each week;
3 x 10 reps of weighted bent-over nordic curls
3 x 10 reps of negative nordic curls
2 x 10 reps of partial nordic curls
2 x 10 reps of pulsing nordic curls
Warm-down
My warm-down sequence is a mini routine of its own. We move through a series of postures and exercises that do far more than just alieviate lactic acid and reduce DOMS (Delayed Onset of Muscular Soreness). Although this is where passive stretching is taught, dynamic stretching and PNF stretching is also included to promote strength.
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